Pressed Cake
Two cups sugar, two-thirds cup butter, one cup milk, three cups flour, four eggs, three teaspoons baking powder, bake in three jelly tins; take one third of it out, put spice, fruit and two tablespoons molasses in it, then put together with frosting. The one with the fruit in it must be in the center. When baked, put the cakes all in one tin and place another tin over them and press by putting two irons on the tin which covers the cake, and let them remain several hours. This will not make the cake heavy but give it a fine grain, use as much fruit and spice as you wish.
A standard 19th-century butter cake split into three layers, one of them darkened with molasses, spice and dried fruit, then stacked, frosted and weighted. The pressing is the whole point of the recipe and the only step likely to be unfamiliar.
- The pressingAfter the layers are filled and stacked, cover with a second tin or a flat board and weight it. Two flatirons ran roughly 5-8 lb apiece; a couple of large cans, a foil-wrapped brick or a heavy skillet will do. Several hours at room temperature compresses the crumb to a closer, finer grain, and helps the frosting glue the layers into a slab that cuts cleanly.
- Jelly tinsRound shallow layer pans, 8 or 9 inches across and about an inch deep. Three of them from this batter gives thin layers; grease and line the bases.
- Oven heatNo temperature is given; the heat was judged by hand and experience. Bake at about 350F; thin layers of this type run roughly 18-25 minutes and are done when the centre springs back.
- MixingThe method is assumed rather than stated. Cream the butter and sugar, beat in the eggs, then add the sifted flour and baking powder alternately with the milk. Divide off a third of the batter before adding the spice, fruit and molasses to it.
- Fruit and spice"As much as you wish" would typically mean currants, raisins, chopped citron or candied peel, with cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg and mace. About a cup of fruit and a rounded teaspoon of mixed spice suits one-third of this batter. Toss the fruit in a spoonful of the flour so it does not sink.
- The dark layer goes in the middleThe recipe insists on it; the result is that the sliced cake shows a dark band between two pale ones.
- FrostingNo frosting recipe is given. A boiled white icing or a plain confectioners' sugar and egg-white icing is period-correct and stiff enough to hold under weight; a soft buttercream will squeeze out at the edges when pressed.
- YieldThree 8- or 9-inch layers, pressed down to a firm stacked cake serving 12-16 in thin slices. It keeps several days well wrapped.
Cakes of this pattern turn up all through late 19th-century American community and household cookbooks under names like Ribbon Cake, Neapolitan Cake and Pressed Cake: one batter, divided, with a portion darkened by molasses, spice and dried fruit so that the cut slice shows stripes. It was a thrifty piece of showmanship, since it produced the look of two cakes from a single mixing and a single heating of the oven. The weighting under flatirons is the distinctive touch here, and the author is at pains to insist it will not make the cake heavy but give it "a fine grain" - a close, even, slightly compressed crumb.